Horseshoes serve as protective shoes to protect horse hoofs from wearing out over time caused by impacts and abrasions on terrain surfaces. Horseshoes may be designed to improve speed performance of a racing horse or to improve traction on terrains or road surfaces, or simply to reduce wear and tear on a hoof capsule (110), which is a keratinous protein protective layer of tissue, beneath the horse hoof (similar to human finger nail).
As a result, different horseshoe designs are made available to provide better performance on certain competitive events such as horse racing, sport horses, show horses, English and Western riding disciplines, horse harness activities, or simply the horseshoes are to provide better comfort to the horse hoofs while engaging rider's leisurely horse activities or any horse usage.
FIG. 1A illustrates a side view (100A) of a current method of mounting a horseshoe onto a horse hoof (102). More specifically, FIG. 1 depicts a side view of a lower portion of a horse leg, which a hair line (104) demarcates a horse hoof (102) from a pastern column (106). A front portion of the horse hoof (102) is known as a toe (103), where a hind portion of the horse hoof (102) is known as a heel (108). There exists a small cavity or pocket area (shown as dotted lines with details in FIG. 1B) which extends from a rearmost end of the heel (108) towards a center of the horse hoof (102). The small cavity includes a frog area (110b) (because it shapes like a frog when viewed from the bottom) and a buttress area (110a). As seen in FIG. 1A, the current practice of mounting a horseshoe (150) involves simply nailing (154) the horseshoe (150) onto the hoof capsule (110) at the bottom surface (107) of the horse hoof (102).
FIG. 1B illustrates a bottom view (100B) of a current practice method in mounting a horseshoe beneath a horse hoof as shown in FIG. 1A. Referring to FIG. 1B, there is shown a U shaped horseshoe (150) shaped and contoured to fit beneath the horse hoof. The horseshoe (150) typically includes a groove or a slot (152) or punched holes which are aligned along each side to enable direct nailing of nails (154a-154h) onto the hoof capsule (110) in order to secure the horseshoe (150) beneath the horse hoof (102).
FIG. 1B also depicts the frog area (110b) and the buttress area (110b) (shaded portion), which is a small cavity or pocket area near a heel (108) of the horse hoof. The frog area (110b) is made up of mostly soft tissues, which extends towards a center of the horse hoof (102) and the frog area (110b) terminates at the apex (110c).
The inventor of the pending disclosure has contributed to some studies (see the above cited references) to support an observation that horses which roam in the wild without horseshoes tend to have more healthy hooves than horses having rigid horseshoes (150) nailed under their hooves (102). For example, one of the indications of the health of the horse hoof (102) may be observed by inspecting how uniform is a horse hoof hairline (104) and by inspecting the wearing of soft tissues in the frog area (110b) under the horse hoof (102). A subject of finding an optimal balance position to mount a horseshoe under the hoof to improve horse standing posture which mitigates fatigue on the hoofs has been discussed.
The inventor has discovered that the existing horseshoe designs and the current practice in horseshoe mounting (i.e., nailing) cause confinement or restriction to the natural movement of the horse hoof (102) due to natural loading (i.e., see FIG. 1A, a downward compressive force (170) on the horse hoof or upon ground impact from standing, trotting or running). Such confinement to natural horse hoof movement by the horseshoe (150) tends to restrict blood flows to the horse hoof (102). Over an extended period of time, confinements to the horse hoof movements or blood flow restriction may accelerate fatigue and contribute to an unhealthy hoof because of a tourniquet binding effect causing rigidity of the toe regions as they relate to the sides of the hoof capsule.
In addition, the current practice (see FIGS. 1A, 1B) of horseshoe mounting by nailing (154) does not provide flexibility and ease in mounting and dismounting a horseshoe (150). It may be desirable to mount a suitable type of horseshoe for a specific riding purpose based on terrain types (paved or unpaved, rocky or smooth), distance, activities to perform (e.g., racing, jumping, pulling) and based on the physical condition of the horse.
The efforts of mounting (nailing) and dismounting (un-nailing) horseshoes are nevertheless, quite tedious, time consuming and can be costly since it involves training and knowledge to properly perform such tasks. In addition, improper positioning of a horseshoe (150) at an optimal distance from the apex (110c) without considering proper load balance distributed on the horse leg may cause premature injury to a horse hoof. Moreover, excessive nailing and un-nailing of a horseshoe (150) may quickly wear out the hoof capsule (110) (i.e., the keratinous protein layer of tissue similar to human finger nail) which would require time to grow back.